Apr 9

Apr 9 ICE is State-Sponsored Terrorism

As this country is astutely aware, ICE raids have ramped up since the beginning of the second Trump presidency with ICE having arrested and imprisoned a staggering 400,000 people since the beginning of 2025, with the Trump administration wanting to reach targets of 4,000 deportations a day (American immigration council, N.D.).

But ICE is not an institution created by the Trump administration—George W. Bush created ICE in the aftermath of 9/11 as the fear of attacks and national security threats heightened. President Bush used ICE during Operation Community Shield, “A national law enforcement initiative that targets violent transnational street gangs through the use of ICE's broad law enforcement powers,” which has a strikingly similar justification to President Trump’s.

The difference between Bush and Trump, however, is that Bush had Americans’ anger brewing in the wake of 9/11, enough to pass laws aimed at “fighting terrorism”, which acted to cover the human rights violations of minority groups like immigrants. These policies in the immediate aftermath of the attack were widely supported and faced little resistance from both Democratic lawmakers and the general public. The justification for Trump's immigration crackdown now, however, is lacking an overarching support base, as operations grow broader and broader. By many Americans, ICE is now seen as the tool the government uses to mobilize an unidentifiable, violent occupying force that suppresses dissent and instills fear among the populace.

ICE violence isn’t new. As stated, ICE was created by Bush, and has since been used by every single president to brutally enforce immigration laws, not excluding Presidents Obama and Biden. The difference between Trump and his predecessors, is that his Democratic president predecessors did the legally sanctioned state violence less overtly. Although fewer deaths occurred under Biden, over 500,000 people were arrested by ICE.(1) Recently, the violence has escalated severely, with 2025 having 32 reported deaths in ICE custody—the deadliest year since 2005.(2)

In Minneapolis, the DHS Operation Metro surge led directly to the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Renee Good was murdered in her vehicle after being stopped by masked ICE agents in January of this year. The entire incident was captured on video both from the agent himself and multiple witnesses. DHS claimed that the officer, Jonathan Ross, was acting in self defense and that Good was a “domestic terrorist" who was going out of her way to target federal officers. However, the videos released by bystanders revealed that, not only did Ross go against doctrine by standing in front of the vehicle but also that Good was obviously not attempting to hit the officer. The New York Times released an analysis of the murder after multiple angles had been released. In the video, we can clearly hear Good shout to two agents who arrived in a pickup, "Just go around!” The agents, who are visibly armed, walk up to her car when one reaches into the vehicle and grabs at Mrs. Good. Ross’s own cell phone video shows him walking around to the front of the car as she attempts to get away from the situation.(3)

This kind of action goes against every typical law enforcement doctrine. Officers, assuming that someone is potentially dangerous, are not to approach vehicles in the manner that Ross or the other agents did, and according to the Associated Press, “Justice Department policy says deadly force is allowed only when no reasonable alternative exists, including stepping out of the vehicle’s path.”(4) Ross did entirely the opposite, and moved directly into the vehicle's path.

In the same NYT video, the analysts state, “She looks down, shifts into drive, and begins to turn right, away from the agent.” It's at this point when Ross pulls out his firearm and shoots the first of three times. His left hand remains holding his cell phone, braced against Good’s vehicle as she pulls out. Ross was never knocked to the ground and there was ample space between his legs and the front of the vehicle. By the time he fires the second and third shot, Good’s vehicle is almost fully turned onto the road.

Circumstantial evidence also shows that Good had no intent to become a martyr. Good had a wife and an elementary age son, whom she had just dropped off at school, about seven minutes before she was murdered. Not only is there no probable reason for why Good would have done this, Ross had every chance to move out of the way, but instead he killed an innocent woman. In his own video, you can even hear him mutter “F***ing b****,” a horrifying example of how willingly, and how unremorsefully ICE agents kill.

17 days later, an ICU nurse, Alex Pretti, attempting to drag a fellow protester away from further harm was slaughtered by ICE agents only two miles from where Good had been killed. Pretti had not attacked, hit, or agitated ICE officers in the moments before his murder. The DHS justification once again was that Pretti was acting as a “domestic terrorist” and intending to shoot ICE agents. At the time, Pretti was carrying a small handgun, being a licensed carrier and exercising his Second Amendment right. Pretti never reached for his firearm as he was helping another member of the protest, but was dragged to the ground and then shot ten times after being disarmed. Once again, video from the scene clearly shows this. An agent grabs the weapon from his holster and then walks away with it, only for the remaining ICE agents to open fire. Pretti was killed instantly.

The government's narrative about Mr. Pretti being an “agitator” or “threatening” are entirely false; Pretti was there to protest the ICE occupation of Minneapolis and to support his community. He was no doubt inspired to action by the killing of Good, the intense violence of ICE seen in the L.A. protests of that past fall, and the increase in deportations. The immediate labeling of these victims as terrorists, or somehow universally dangerous, is indicative of a state that values control over its citizens as opposed to the liberty it supposedly protects.

In fact, this kind of rhetoric needed to be walked back by the White House: “The Trump administration official charged with overseeing the president’s aggressive deportation agenda told lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee the circumstances surrounding Alex Pretti’s death were ‘chaotic’.”(5) Even with the White House trying to do damage control, then-secretary Kristi Noem refused to retract her statement that Pretti was a terrorist.

Underlying all of these excuses, there is no semblance of accountability. The government expects for average, untrained citizens to always act calmly and rationally around armed and violent agents, while also providing an incredible degree of separation between the actions of those violent agents. Any attempt at systemic criticism is immediately shut down by both Democrats and Republicans. The issue is not that ICE is doing this illegally, and the fix is giving them body cameras or driving in marked vans, as congressional Democrats suggest; the issue is that ICE is kidnapping and murdering people at the behest of the U.S. government and the corporations that sponsor it. ICE is an inherently violent institution that cannot be simply reformed.

The increase in violence is no doubt correlated to an increase in nationalist and far-right propaganda, as well as the recruitment of far right activists to ICE. Since Trump's second term, departments have begun using far right or Nazi propaganda in official government posts. Some of the most notable examples are DHS’s “Which way, American man?” post on X, which is a play on “Which way, Western Man?” a book written by a Neo Nazi in the late 1970’s that advocates for the deportation of all Black Americans and claims “Jewish plots”(2) are being made to destroy the western world. Another slogan used in an eerie parallel to the Nazis is “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage,” which is a modified version of the “One People. One realm. One leader,” used by the Nazis (note the term realm in German is Reich, which can be understood to mean homeland in the original German).(6)

The overall message that ICE is sending is commonly referred to as ”the great replacement theory,” which is a theory that claims that white people in America (or as the Trump administration calls them "heritage Americans”) are being replaced by a foreign invader, whether it be Jews, Muslims, or in the most recent case, Latinos. Overtly fascist and far right groups like Patriot Front, the Proud Boys, and even the KKK preach this as a core part of their rhetoric. In a speech at a Texas University, Patriot Front founder Thomas Rousseau stated, “A corrupt rootless, global, and tyrannical elite has usurped your democracy and turned it into a weapon, first to enslave and then to replace you.”(7) It is the same rhetoric that underscores the White House's propaganda.

To average Americans, they can be assumed to be innocuous government recruiting ads, but the inclusion of these specific statements are dog whistles for Neo Nazis and fascist groups that signal to them that the government recognizes their beliefs, validates them, and promotes that becoming a member of ICE is an effective way of exercising them.

In addition to increasing violence on the streets, facilities used by ICE are notoriously shoddy and keep people in inhumane conditions. These ICE concentration camps have a history of sexual abuse cases. In 2011, the ACLU received documents that revealed that 200 sexual assault claims had been given to ICE centers since 2007.(8) That figure is likely an underestimate too, as immigrants that have just earned their citizenship or entry into the country certainly have a compelling reason to overlook sexual or physical abuse.

As for the treatment of children, the Hutto detention center is a stark example of how barbaric immigration enforcement is. According to the four law firms that filed suits in 2007 against the facility:

“Prior to the litigation, the children at Hutto were required to wear prison garb and detained in small cells for 11 to 12 hours with only one hour of recreation a day. They lacked access to adequate medical, dental and mental health treatment and were denied meaningful educational opportunities. Guards frequently disciplined children by threatening to separate them permanently from their parents.”(9)

Although this specific case was settled in 2007, a large portion of immigration facilities going into the 2010-20’s suffer from the same type of mistreatment. Children and parents are intentionally separated under Trump's zero tolerance policy, which was a main point of contention in the Hutto lawsuit. The policy, created during his first term, criminally prosecutes all adults crossing the US border and then reclassifies their children as "unaccompanied minors,” placing them into the custody of DHS where they are held indefinitely in detention until the government decides whether to let them in or to deport them. According to a report from The Guardian, hundreds of families separated under this policy have yet to be reunited. This practice has since been brought back during the second term.(10)

Trump's “Alligator Alcatraz,” created in only a few days, is the most prolific of the new and improved ICE detention camps with no less horrid conditions. Photos from DHS show how poorly this camp was created, with chain-link fences for the cells (practically cages). One of the first detainees, Leamsy Isquierdo, who has a four year old daughter, reported to CBS:

“We've been here at [Alligator] Alcatraz since Friday. There's over 400 people here. There's no water to take a bath; it's been four days since I've taken a bath. They only brought a meal once a day and it had maggots. They never take [sic] off the lights for 24 hours. The mosquitoes are as big as elephants."(11)

Another man said they were “being treated like dogs…” and had their human rights violated constantly, not having access to food, or clean drinking water. Another tells of three days of sleep deprivation, as the harsh fluorescent lights of the camp are always on, being denied his medication, and having his Bible confiscated by guards.

ICE is continuing to purchase large warehouses and swaths of land to build their faclities—places to imprison, torture, and in growing numbers, murder. In the first three months of 2026, 17 people have died at the hands of ICE, from the purposeful deprivation from medical care. At this rate, ICE will kill 1 person every 6 days.(12) It's obvious that ICE concentration camps are some of the most striking examples of the failure of the U.S. government, punitive justice, and the enforcement of imaginary borders. Brutality based on race and economic status have always been the mantra of the U.S.—ICE is not a new phenomenon; it's simply the continuation of centuries of state and capitalist brutality.

But every brutal regime faces resistance, as we in the U.S. have seen and the White House has come to reckon with. ICE is not a monolith of power nor impermeable. They attempt to brandish violence so people become scared and complicit, a force easily combated through the solidarity of our neighbors, our fellow workers, and our communities as a whole. The radical solidarity explicit to human nature prevailed with the protesters in Minneapolis, successfully pressuring ICE enough to end operation Metro Surge before it could reach its full capacity—not through pandering to centrist solutions that the Democrats in Congress are offering, but by mobilizing their love and their anger. The power of the people lies in our collective strength.

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty!